The Destiny subreddit has polled its readers’ opinions of Destiny 2, and invited them to compare it to its predecessor. With roughly 11,700 responses, it’s a pretty decent sample size, and the results will make mixed reading for Bungie.
How and when will Bungie improve their epic space shooter? Our Destiny 2 update tracker collates everything coming to the game.
The community were first asked which platform they played on – 41.4% are on PlayStation 4, but 40.2% are on PC, which is higher than I’d personally expected. 30.2% are on Xbox One, meaning some fans have double-dipped.
Next, readers rated various features of Destiny 2 out of ten. It’s clear that there’s still a lot of anger out there about the shaders controversy, with 20% of responses giving Destiny 2’s customisation system a one out of ten.
Even more replies – 22.7% – also gave the lowest score to Destiny 2’s end game. Bungie have acknowledged that players need more to do at this stage, so I’m expecting to see some positive changes in the coming Osiris DLC, but I’m less optimistic about shaders. It’s clearly been decided that cosmetics are now integral to the game’s reward loop, and I can’t see Bungie walking back that decision lightly.
On the more positive side, Destiny 2’s graphics and sound design were scored eight or higher by a clear majority of the community, with ten the top response in both cases. Almost all core gameplay activities scored a seven, including the campaign, patrol areas, strikes, social spaces, lost sectors, and adventures. The Crucible also got a seven as the top response with 15.6% of replies, but interestingly, a one was the second-most popular score by a margin of less than 3%, so PvP has clearly divided fans.
The community were slightly more generous about Destiny 2’s Leviathan raid, which was rated eight by 21% of replies and seven by 18.9% of replies. When compared to the original’s raids, though, Leviathan came fourth with only 7.5% of votes, narrowly pipping last-placed Crota’s End. The Vault of Glass took a commanding win with 49% of votes.
Overall, 27.6% of the community rated Destiny 2 a seven out of ten (as did I, in my review) with eight and six the next-most popular scores. When compared to Destiny 1, 71.8% of replies preferred the original to the sequel.
So Bungie have plenty more work to do, according to the Destiny subreddit, but what must concern them is that some of the community’s concerns are systemic, and thus, probably intractable. The community prefers the original game’s weapon perks and loadouts, its subclass system, and its game mechanics overall.
Of course, most PC players haven’t experienced the original. With that in mind, how are you finding Destiny 2, and what do you make of the community survey?
You can read the survey in full here.